As a nation, the French excel at minimalism! Consider the Citroen 2CV, a
car stripped to the bare essentials. They also invented the hot air
balloon, which obviated the need for explosive hydrogen, and improved (in
my view) the bikini, by dispensing with its top half! Their accordions
follow the same idea; since the "dim" button can play a Dominant 7th,
let's get rid of the row of Dominant 7th buttons.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that this French Stradella system has
nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that many French players also have
a Continental Chromatic Treble Keyboard rather than a piano keyboard! We
are only considering the chord and bass buttons here.

The "Italian" system is almost without exception what is offered by
dealers in these fair isles to anyone seeking a full size accordion,
though most manufacturers offer the French system if required. Having
heard visiting French professionals extolling the virtues of the system,
and performing brilliantly upon it, I was among those British players left
wondering if our dealers were overlooking a superior system, and decided
to investigate further.

In the Italian system, the button we call " G dim" makes a perfectly good
C7 chord, consisting of the notes E, G, Bb. Occasionally (in certain
classical arrangements) it may be preferable to the C, E, Bb construction
of the normal C7 button. If you have an ordinary Italian system accordion,
with 3 note Dominant 7ths and a row of "dim" buttons, you can try, (at no
expense!), what the "French" 7ths sound like by substituting G "dim" for
C7, C "dim" for F7 etc. This gives the "French" chord construction, but
not the exact physical feel, for the French put this "G dim" button in the
C row, in the place we would find our C7.

From this example, it should be clear that, in the French system, all the
"dim" buttons are moved one row physically DOWNWARDS or "FLATWISE" as I
prefer to term it. So a player who is already used to the position of the
"dim" buttons and their relationship to the bass and counterbass buttons
would need to adapt, though one who has yet to progress to the use of the
"dim" row would have no problems learning the system.

ADVANTAGES

The row of dominant 7ths being omitted either makes for a more compact
bass button board with five rows of buttons, or the space saved can be
occupied by an extra row of counterbasses instead. This new row plays the
Minor 3rd. Thus, in the row containing the marked C bass note, you have
the normal Major Third counterbass note E, as on the Italian system, and
you additionally have the note Eb available in the extra counterbass row,
which is the row nearest the bellows. Some variants of this system
displace the extra counterbass row by one position; but the essential
advantage is that the minor third bass note is nearby. On the Italian
system, playing a first inversion of Cm, ie Cm button with Eb bass note,
is a job for a hardworking little finger. So out of the way is it that
many average ear players never use the first inversion of a minor chord !

For those who more methodically study the bass side, a hurdle which has to
be jumped is the extremely common chord progression:- C/e Cdim/eb
Dm/d G7/g
It is a progression which occurs in all styles of popular music, from
Ragtime through Dance Band, Polkas and Musette. Because the C dim is being
used as an abbreviated Diminished 7th chord, whose construction is
symmetrically built out of Minor Third intervals, it follows that any
other "dim" button 3 rows away will be an inversion of the same chord,
though with a different note omitted in its abbreviation. Thus, the
progression could also be played:- C/e Ebdim/eb Dm/d G7/g

There are other possibilities, but none which strike me as being
physically more convenient.

Much musette music uses this chord progression as a commonplace. Here is
an extract from "Reine de Musette", in a quite decorated version:-

[well known tune harmonised with that sequence
C/e Cdim/eb Dm/d G7/g transposed to A major]

This progression and many others should be much easier to execute on the
French System with the minor third counterbasses. Complex Bass Solos
should also lie more under the hand.

DISADVANTAGES

As discussed above, the sound of a "dim" button used to voice a Dominant
7th chord differs from our normal 7th buttons. But leaving aside any
personal preference for either sound, the Italian system offers some extra
chordal possibilities.

Since the Dominant Seventh buttons on the Italian Stradella omit the
perfect fifth, the button can be used as the basis for such chords as G7+
(where the augmented fifth can be added in the right hand without a
clash), and G7b5, where the flattened fifth can be played on the basses or
the right hand. As far as I can see, these Seventh chords containing a
major third and an altered fifth are the only ones which the pared down
French system cannot cope with.

For the folk players and other less harmonically demanding accordionists,
the 5-row French system, constructed without the extra row of
counterbasses, might be suitable. A letter in the Feb 94 issue from Werner
Fehlhaber, no stranger to this magazine, advocated lighter, more compact
accordions, asking "for our daily enjoyment do we really need diminished
seventh?" Yes, most emphatically we do !! By far the better candidate for
the chop would be the Dominant Seventh buttons. The casing around the bass
mechanism could be approx 1cm shorter, though the weight saved would be
negligible in comparison with leaving out one octave of bass reeds.

The 6-row French System, with the extra counterbass row, is the choice of
many French accordion stars, so it is obviously not too restrictive !

Devotees of this system maintain that the use of their "dim" buttons as a
Dominant Seventh is more sonorous and rounded than our "Italian" ones, and
willingly demonstrate that their "dim" row (being identical to ours
except in being displaced "flatwise" by one position ), is obviously just
as versatile. A recap on its various uses:-
The "dim" button to be found in the C row on an Italian system accordion,
or in the F row on the French system, can be used to voice a 3-note
version of the eight following 4-note chords, with a suitable bass note
underneath:-

C dim, Eb dim, F# dim, A dim, F7, Am7b5, Cm6, D7b9.

The first four are all inversions of the same Diminished Seventh chord;
the F7 has no tonic ( name-note); Am7b5 and Cm6 both contain the same
notes, though in Am7b5 it is the 7th which is omitted, and in Cm6, it is
the fifth. Finally D7b9 consists of any inversion of a C Diminished
Seventh Chord played over a D bass note.

I asked a couple of experts for their thoughts on the French system.
Albert Delroy, who sadly died in February 1996, was the leading
authority on chord systems, having studied even the one-off systems
commissioned by individual artistes. His view was that the Italian
system, or "Modern Stradella", sold here, is the best possible, provided
one plays music suited to the instrument. He felt that the essential,
defining feature of a Dominant Seventh chord is that crunch of the Tonic
heard against the Seventh, and this is missing in the "French" Seventh. He
added that in Northern France and Belgium, the so-called "Belgian System"
is popular. This has exactly the same three types of chord as the
"French", though the layout is different.

Charlie Watkins, dealer, inventor, and accordion enthusiast, agrees about
those Sevenths. He does not know of any British players who have adopted
the French or Belgian systems, and feels that the extra counterbass row is
probably confusing. He likes the sound of the four note sevenths which
formerly were built into most accordions, and still are in East European
accordions, but agrees that some harmony is precluded by this.

In conclusion, the compact 5 row French system might be attractive to: (A)
Players who have not yet progressed to the "dim" buttons. (B) Those who
have, but are willing to seek them in a new position. Anyone
contemplating this system should be aware of the different sound of the
Seventh, and reconcile themselves to avoiding 7+ and 7b5 chords. Je
regrette, ce n'est pas pour moi !